His colleagues were burned alive when the rapidly-spreading fire they were battling from scrubland on June 30 swung around by 180 degrees amid powerful winds.

Mr McDonough, nicknamed "Donut", said he remembered the sounds from inside his truck after the disaster. "I could hear phones ringing, knowing that it was their wives, their family," he said. "I sunk. Sunk into my seat, I sunk into myself".

"Why wasn't I there with them?" McDonough said he had asked himself. "I'd cried a lot. And I came to a point where I just didn't have any more tears." The young firefighter said he was devastated by the fact that the late crew members had 10 children between them, plus three not yet born who will never meet their fathers.

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"I can see them in my head, playing with their kids," he said. "Every one of them strong, smart, always ready to head into the danger others fled."

The 21-year-old, who now has a tattoo by which to remember "the 19", said he would remember his work for the much-loved elite unit in Prescott, Arizona, as the best time of his life.

"None of us ever did it for money," he said. "We did it because we could support our family and do what we loved." Mr McDonough pledged to go on working as a firefighter despite the tragedy.

He also joined Arizona politicians in dismissing an official report by the state's deputy chief forester, which blamed Eric Marsh, the crew's leader, for not following procedures in tackling the blaze.

"No, I never question the decisions they've made," he said. "I never questioned them before, why should I question them now? It's not their fault. Wasn't a bad decision." Asked by the ABC interviewer whether he felt he could have done any more to protect his colleagues, he said: "There's nothing I could've done besides to have been up on the hill with them and someone else to have been in my position - to have been with them and died in my boots with them."